The benthic fauna of European continental shelves is a severely impacted community, mostly due to intense bottom trawling activity. Trawling effect may be dependent on the spatial and temporal distribution of abrasion, the habitat type including natural perturbation intensity and the fishing gear used. Nonetheless, there is an urgent need to identify or develop indices likely to measure the effect of trawling. For this purpose benthic fauna by-catch monitored in scientific trawl surveys carried out in all European waters in the frame of the Common Fishery Policy Data Collection Multiannual Program may be used. Benthic invertebrates data used in this study were collected during scientific bottom trawl surveys covering the English Channel, the North Sea and the North-West Mediterranean. Swept area ratios derived from VMS data were used to quantify the intensity of fishery induced abrasion on the seabed. Fifteen indices were investigated: taxonomic diversity metrics, functional diversity indices and functional indices, the two later based on sensitivity traits to physical abrasion. Their properties, such as their capacity to detect trawling effect, their statistical behavior or their ability to inform on community structure, were investigated. Among them, fours indices specific to fishery effect detection based on biological traits appeared to be the best performing benthic indices regarding these requirements: Trawling Disturbance Index (TDI), modified-Trawling Disturbance Index (mTDI), partial-Trawling Disturbance Index (pTDI), modified sensitivity index (mT). Maps of the distribution pattern of seabed sensitivity captured through each of these four indices were produced. This work has highlighted the need to use specific indices to monitor the effect of trawling on benthic communities but also that the use of different indices may be necessary to carry out this monitoring in all European waters.

欧洲大陆架底栖动物区系是一个受到严重影响的社区，主要是由于进行了激烈的底部拖网活动。拖网效应可能取决于磨损的时空分布，栖息地类型（包括自然扰动强度）和所使用的渔具。尽管如此，迫切需要确定或制定可能衡量拖网作业影响的指标。为此目的，可以使用在《共同渔业政策数据收集多年计划》框架内在所有欧洲水域进行的科学拖网调查中监测的底栖动物副渔获物。本研究中使用的底栖无脊椎动物数据是在覆盖英吉利海峡，北海和西北地中海的科学海底拖网调查期间收集的。从VMS数据得出的扫描面积比用于量化渔业在海底引起的磨损强度。研究了15个指数：分类学多样性指标，功能多样性指数和功能指数，这两个指数后来基于对物理磨损的敏感性特征。研究了它们的特性，例如它们检测拖网渔船的能力，其统计行为或告知社区结构的能力。其中，就这些要求而言，基于生物学特性的渔业效应检测专用的四级指标似乎是表现最好的底栖指标：拖网干扰指数（TDI），改良拖网干扰指数（mTDI），部分拖网干扰指数（pTDI） ，修改了灵敏度指标（mT）。绘制了通过这四个指标中的每个指标捕获的海底敏感度分布模式图。这项工作强调了需要使用特定指标来监测拖网对底栖生物的影响，而且有必要使用不同的指标来在所有欧洲水域进行这种监测。